Pierre
Stratologist
Well about a year ago (was boxing day actually), I was staying at my grandparents' in Vienne, one of France's, shall we say..., rural regions. There's not much to do out there. Since I was with my parents and I had a budget I figured I'd hit the local guitar stores. Only found a couple to be honest. So off we went to Poitiers, the nearest city.
So I went into this store which, to be honest, wasn't too bad. Of course like most French stores it was overpriced and of course being in such a place, even more so.
They had some Lags and Vigiers, both quality, quality French brands. Of course totally out of my budget.
Anyway upon a small inspection of the stock I stumbled upon this lonely blue Strat. She looked a bit sorry for herself to be honest. Strings were basically black. She had been sitting on her stand for so long that the finish had worn down where it made contact with it. I thought that no one must have had played it in a while. It was also an older series highway 1, not the newer ones with the 70s headstock.
There she is after a good cleanup.
Anyway... I ask the price...650 euros. Not bad for a highway1 in this place. I play it, and the owner takes me through a wee room with loads of amps. I plug into one of those new Fender ChampXDs and turn up the clean sound.
Now I'll be ****ed if she didn't sound GOOD.
I mostly played her unplugged. I must prefer being able to hear the sound of the strings/guitars. Now this is a 2002 models, and the strings had never been changed by December 2007, so you can imagin the state of them. Still, she sounded very, very good. So I took it on the spot.
Thinking about it I should have haggled. The guy even made me pay for a set of strings... I'm sorry but if I buy a 650 euros guitar in a store I'd expect some strings, picks or other goodies, but anyway... was my own fault.
We then headed to Poitiers and I bought some lemon oil for the fingerboard. A couple of days later I got some tools so I could do basic adjustements: The truss rod was too loose and there was a lot of relief. So I replaced the strings and tuned to Eb to ease the pressure, and adjusted the rod a bit. It didn't do much but the neck didn't move either so that's not so bad.
Since then I settled on a set of 10/52s for her, always D'addario.
First mods I did was replace the Fender pickups with Seymour Duncans, which added a little sweetness to it. I got myself a Quarter Pounder for the bridge, with MV/MT knobs and a switch for middle + bridge in series.
Then I decided on a humbucker... I tried a couple, the PATB3 (too middy) and the Jazz (a bit too bright) before I asked around and got advised the AII pro bucker. So that's what she's had ever since.
Unfortunately, Fender, while they do route their guitars for a humbucker in the bridge, do not route for pickup mounting screws. So I had to some smaller ones I had and put up a mounting ring to be able to mount the pickup. The pickguard is courtesy of my good friend and all-round great player and person Niels in Denmark.
I had to replace the saddles too as the original ones wouldn't go high enough for my tastes in string height.
I screwed the bridge all the way down, added a spring and took the trem arm out.
I took out the rear plate too as I feel no need for it.
Got some straplocks too and a strap in Denmark. The strap is now on the LP, but she's got a standard black nylon strat. She doens't need to overcompensate
Pickups are TB APH, and two random Duncan singles, not sure which they are. I'm thinking one SSL1 and one APS. Eh doesn't matter. I wired it with an autosplit for the bridge + middle position and it sounds very, very Straty. I really appreciate that I've been able to get the Strat with bucker sounds, without losing any of the Strat sounds.
For some reason I'm also very happy with the blue/white/black look she has. The knobs complement the guitar very well I feel.
She stays in tune the best out of all my guitars. Even better than my Charvel with the blocked Floyd Rose. I can abuse and abuse her, I end up retuning it only about once a week. I never had to tweak the nut, string trees etc... Only just changed the saddles.
So I went into this store which, to be honest, wasn't too bad. Of course like most French stores it was overpriced and of course being in such a place, even more so.
They had some Lags and Vigiers, both quality, quality French brands. Of course totally out of my budget.
Anyway upon a small inspection of the stock I stumbled upon this lonely blue Strat. She looked a bit sorry for herself to be honest. Strings were basically black. She had been sitting on her stand for so long that the finish had worn down where it made contact with it. I thought that no one must have had played it in a while. It was also an older series highway 1, not the newer ones with the 70s headstock.
There she is after a good cleanup.
Anyway... I ask the price...650 euros. Not bad for a highway1 in this place. I play it, and the owner takes me through a wee room with loads of amps. I plug into one of those new Fender ChampXDs and turn up the clean sound.
Now I'll be ****ed if she didn't sound GOOD.
I mostly played her unplugged. I must prefer being able to hear the sound of the strings/guitars. Now this is a 2002 models, and the strings had never been changed by December 2007, so you can imagin the state of them. Still, she sounded very, very good. So I took it on the spot.
Thinking about it I should have haggled. The guy even made me pay for a set of strings... I'm sorry but if I buy a 650 euros guitar in a store I'd expect some strings, picks or other goodies, but anyway... was my own fault.
We then headed to Poitiers and I bought some lemon oil for the fingerboard. A couple of days later I got some tools so I could do basic adjustements: The truss rod was too loose and there was a lot of relief. So I replaced the strings and tuned to Eb to ease the pressure, and adjusted the rod a bit. It didn't do much but the neck didn't move either so that's not so bad.
Since then I settled on a set of 10/52s for her, always D'addario.
First mods I did was replace the Fender pickups with Seymour Duncans, which added a little sweetness to it. I got myself a Quarter Pounder for the bridge, with MV/MT knobs and a switch for middle + bridge in series.
Then I decided on a humbucker... I tried a couple, the PATB3 (too middy) and the Jazz (a bit too bright) before I asked around and got advised the AII pro bucker. So that's what she's had ever since.
Unfortunately, Fender, while they do route their guitars for a humbucker in the bridge, do not route for pickup mounting screws. So I had to some smaller ones I had and put up a mounting ring to be able to mount the pickup. The pickguard is courtesy of my good friend and all-round great player and person Niels in Denmark.
I had to replace the saddles too as the original ones wouldn't go high enough for my tastes in string height.
I screwed the bridge all the way down, added a spring and took the trem arm out.
I took out the rear plate too as I feel no need for it.
Got some straplocks too and a strap in Denmark. The strap is now on the LP, but she's got a standard black nylon strat. She doens't need to overcompensate
Pickups are TB APH, and two random Duncan singles, not sure which they are. I'm thinking one SSL1 and one APS. Eh doesn't matter. I wired it with an autosplit for the bridge + middle position and it sounds very, very Straty. I really appreciate that I've been able to get the Strat with bucker sounds, without losing any of the Strat sounds.
For some reason I'm also very happy with the blue/white/black look she has. The knobs complement the guitar very well I feel.
She stays in tune the best out of all my guitars. Even better than my Charvel with the blocked Floyd Rose. I can abuse and abuse her, I end up retuning it only about once a week. I never had to tweak the nut, string trees etc... Only just changed the saddles.
